The Ones Who Accompany Us to 2012

I awakened this morning without dreaming except for a continuous image of a thick Modern Library book, entitled Change. I felt the need to listen deeply to voices that are not my own nor human. I was reminded of the “Transmission Letter,” I wrote in May 1986. It circled the globe, passed from hand to hand by the original thirty-six recipients. In that letter, I spoke of a voice I heard while driving on the freeway some months after the death of my dearest friend that said, “You know, you are being asked to forgive those who were pulled out early, or who did not volunteer to be here to help with the necessary change or to bear witness to the end.”

I have been carrying the consciousness of that letter since that time, twenty-six years ago. Now we are at an essential moment when everything is being asked of us for the future. We either continue as we have and the descent into the on-going tragedy of human and non-human life will accelerate, or we will become those who are here to initiate the necessary changes and offerings so that we will not be called to bear witness to the end.

Guided by the 19 Ways to the 5th World, that were given to me and to the community, (see this Blog) I have understood that the mythic date of 12/21/2012 marks an opportunity for each of us and so for the planet.

In Topanga, we have been considering this date for several years and are gathering for three days to meet this moment. I have written about this before, if not endlessly, and it is the focus of the Blog I started a few months ago, To Consider 2012, http://toconsider2012.wordpress.com/, on which this is also appended.

(Details are at the end of this posting. I offer them so that you don’t have to invent the wheel in order to create your own gathering, and so you can be accompanied, if from a distance, as you also observe this time in our global lives.)

As I mediated on the dream image this morning, I heard what felt like a call similar to the one that came to me in 1986, to listen, to step entirely out of my own personal concerns, even the concern to listen well, and to … “Begin writing!”

2012 As I began considering the aperture that this date, because of its mythic significance, has for us, I didn’t fully understand what is required or made possible. I admit, sixteen days from the very date itself, while I am writing this piece for and to the community, that I still don’t understand. How can I or anyone understand?

2013 The date 2013 pops up on the page as if I am writing an outline, or Spirit is assuring me / us that there can be a future. I am willing to be seen as a fool while I take note of what might be signs, rather than miss something.

I thought I was writing to the community that was preparing to gather, though I did not know what words would follow, and then realized I was also inviting you to read this.

***

We are going to spend three days together marking this opportunity to align with the heart of the universe.

The Kogi people, probably the last surviving pre-Columbian people on the planet, who have devoted their individual and tribal lives to sustaining the heart of the world, have advised us, relentlessly, since they decided to emerge from seclusion in the Sierra Nevada of Columbia, that the world is dying and we are responsible.

The Kogi came to me in a dream in 1999. It was a true meeting. They asked me what I would give in return for the possibilities for the planet that they wished to transmit. I said I would give my life.

My friend, Victor Perera, had met with the Kogi through Alan Ereira. Ereira went through great ordeal to create the film, The Heart of the World. Afterwards, he wrote the book, The Elder Brother’s Warning, and then established the Tairona Heritage Trust, http://www.taironatrust.org.

Victor is a protagonist in my latest novel, La Negra y Blanca, Fugue and Commentary. He is now on the other side, and is, perhaps, guiding me, us, from there. In response to my dream, Victor said that the Kogi had always been able to communicate telepathically with the elders on the planet, but now the communications are blocked by all our activities. I was profoundly humbled by the dream meeting I had had and have devoted myself, as best as I know how, accordingly.

In this moment as I am writing the above, not knowing what will appear next on the page, but continuing nevertheless, I remember that the Kogi have been, for several years since their first emergence into our world, calling together, partnering with the Indigenous, the Native People of this planet so they can learn from each other and live and act in concert. They certainly recognize that they are among the ones who know what has been violated, what must be healed and what are the intrinsic ways to accomplish this. If the original spirit and earth aligned wisdom can be restored then we will have a future.

I am trying to imagine the actual content, exchange and activity of their secret gatherings, secret from us, the perpetrators. I am trying to imagine the specific ways they are meeting among themselves and with each other.

We must understand the gravity and urgency of such times that call the Kogi to dare to enter into our midst and run the risk of being blinded and contaminated by our distorted ways in order to gather with the Indigenous and to alert us to the fate of the heart of the world.

How would they sit, or gather, or meet on these three days with any of the Indigenous people they have already met?

Remembering the content of my true, if dream, meeting with the Kogi: they said, “Teach the pattern. Put the forms in place.”

We understand that form is content and, therefore, if we continue to use and have allegiance to the old forms of our lives, if we adhere to the conventional assumptions and dominant culture, the content of what we do will not change no matter what is said, no matter the small activities we engage.

As many of you know, I have a real and profound relationship with one we call the Elephant Ambassador. So I am trying to imagine what the elephants, who I consider the wise ones on this planet, are demanding that we do to meet, observe, and change in these times so that all life might be preserved and Creation restored.

What are the Kogi, the elephant, dolphin, whale, wolf (being slaughtered in this country as I write) eagle, lion people, what are rain, fire, wind, earth asking of us, demanding of us? How are we each to use the sacred opportunity of these three days to meet them fully?

***

What is this date after all? Why the fuss and urgency? The ancient Maya identified a place in the Milky Way that was, for them, the place of birth and death. Individual lives, tribal life and the cosmos were intrinsically connected to it.

– – And as it happens, the place they identified is the dark hole around which our solar system circles, is the dark hole from which the solar system and so all known life, all our lives emerged.

— And as it happens, our very sun, around which we circle, will be, with other planets,in a direct alignment with this dark hole, this place of birth and death, the heart of the universe, at 3:12 am on December 21st. The light of the sun aligned with the dark at the center.

Or so it is said.

How will we meet the demand? How will we meet the Heart of the Universe? How will we step out of our involvement and enchantment with the details of our own little lives, the bloody sacrificial altar to which we have been relentlessly bringing the earth, so as to meet this sacred challenge, the great possibility of our collective and community lives?

Everyone who is reading this is has been met by spirit and called to some awakening. Perhaps you met Hurricane Sandy, heard the trees snap in the fierce wind and cold, or suffered the torrential rains. Perhaps you are in the Midwest, wondering where the water will come from for your crops or are watching the Mississippi decline rapidly, aware that it may soon be unable to transport goods along its length. Perhaps you have been a recent a victim of earthquake or landslide. Perhaps you have witnessed the recent forest fires and fire storms. Maybe Gaia is speaking. We cannot continue to live as if the consequences of our behavior will not affect us or our families or the earth ? Or perhaps, it is your family or beloveds who are being blown up or tortured now almost anywhere on the globe?

Apology. I have misled us. I didn’t know better. My best thought, until this moment, has been that this date is about our shift in consciousness, yours and mine. A radical shift in consciousness leading to living differently, entirely. It is, certainly, about this, but not so much that our personal shift, insight, activity, takes the only focus. Not so much that we continue to focus upon the small things we will do to appease our fears or conscience. Not so much that we want to decide in advance what we will do or not do on behalf of planetary and species survival.

This morning it seems to me that we are being called to another consciousness, not ours, but that which was connected with the earth in the beginning. A consciousness that would never have developed the ideas and values that have led to the horrors that are afflicting all beings at this time.

Imagine this. The Kogi, the Indigenous, the Animals, the Dead, the Ancestors, the Elementals, Gaia, Herself, will be entering our circles, temples, yurts, meeting rooms, will be literally behind us, invisible but present, insisting that we devote ourselves to meeting this moment. Will we listen, hear, accept their call, instructions and guidance? How shall we be, who shall we become, in their presence?

This is the question we have been given to hold at the alignment with the Heart of World and the Universe.

***

What follows are some excerpts from our original announcement regarding the Topanga gathering The schedule as we have imagined it until this moment is also included. However, we yield in advance and entirely to the guidance and direction of Spirit as it is offered.

Happily, some of those who were going to join us for our small Daré are choosing, instead, to stay home and gather the community around them in resonance with us. At the least, there will be parallel and aligned gatherings and ceremonies of one form or another in Seattle, Santa Cruz, Oakland, Connecticut, Texas, Philadelphia, Curaçao, Guatemala and, perhaps, Nashville. These are not open gatherings, but our hope is that you will find the means to be with Spirit, in solitude or gathered with us and with community, human and non-human, wherever you are living, in the ways you are led to for these days.

If there are any spaces, at the Topanga gathering, it is primarily because these other gatherings are manifesting. Please contact us immediately if you wish to join us, Most importantly feel free to post open, aligned events on this page in the comment section.

***

Dare’ on Behalf of the Future

Here in Topanga, we have been thinking deeply about 2012 and have been for many years. This mythic, historic, astrological, astronomical moment calls us to step across fully into the heart and mind of the Fifth World so that each breath of our lives assures a viable future for all beings. The time of integrity is here. How do we meet it together?

12/21/2012 is the spirit centered, earth centered, heart centered, community centered moment that calls us to live, as the Dine’ say, according to the Beauty Way. Hozro. We have been together in so many ways over the years. We have been together considering the gravity and possibility of these times, holding fast to each other’s hearts. We have hoped to sustain the heart of creation and to contribute to a shift of consciousness that helps restore balance and beauty and creates sanctuary for all beings. Now 2012 is upon us. What do we want to create and how will we do it?

Preparing to do so in our own individual ways for so many years, shifting as we have into new lives with and among each other, these days call us to meet this great challenge together as a community. 2012 invites a new lived consciousness of human and non-human beings.

The Dare’

We are offering a three-day Dare’ from December 20th at noon through December 22nd at midnight.

December 20th Deep Reckoning and Introspection.

Dedicated disengagement from the Fourth World.

December 21st Alignment with the heart of the universe.

Transformation.

December 22nd Invoking and honoring Spirit.

Meeting the land and yielding to the ways of the natural world.

Articulating the new ways.

Responsibility.

Entering the Fifth World through commitment to the Way.

The Means

Rounds of Meditation, Prayer and Communion, Invocation, Silence, Solitude and Blessing. Meditation and Prayer on the Land and For the Land.

Council, Visioning, Dream telling, Story Telling and Divination.

Drumming, Music, Ritual, Ceremony and Camaraderie,

Solitude and Silence

Tending the Fire.

Offerings and Offering of Oneself to the Spirits, the Land and the Beings of the Land.

Tentative(!) Schedule

Thursday, Dec. 20, 2012 DEEP RECKONING AND INTROSPECTION

12 noon Light Fire

Astrology Reading

Focus and Purpose

Meditation, Ritual, Land, Prayer

1:30 pm Council – Dedicated disengagement from what injures and destroys.

3:00 pm Drumming Begins [ continuous drumming 12/20 3:30 pm to12/21

3:00 pm Camaraderie

4:00 pm Dream Telling

Story telling re difference between 4th and 5th worlds.

5:00 pm Meditation, Ritual, Land, Prayer, Music

6:00 pm Dinner

7:30 pm Council – Intentions

9:00 pm Journey and Visioning / Dream Telling / Story

10:30 pm Meditation, Ritual, Land, Prayer

11:00 pm Supper

12:00 am Begin Fast – for those who wish to fast

12:00 am End but for Drumming

1:00 am Begin four hour sacred drumming.

3:00 am Group drumming to acknowledge the solstice moment

3:12 am Under the Milky Way

3:30 am Relight and rededicate fire.

5:00 am End group drumming

Friday, Dec. 21, 2012 Alignment with the Heart of the Universe. Transformation.

Fasting if desired

Drumming continues

10:00 am Relight Fire

Align with Center of Galaxy

Focus. 19 Ways

Meditation, Ritual, Land, Prayer

11:30 am Dream, Story, Vision

12:30 pm Council – Alignment

2:00 pm Break Fast, Food and Camaraderie

2:45-3:45 pm End Drumming together

until 4:30 pm Continue Meditation, Ritual, Land, Prayer

4:30 pm Community Divinations

5:30 – 7 pm Council – Offering oneself to transformation.

7 – 8:00 pm Food and Camaraderie

8:00 pm Journey and Visioning / Dream Telling / Story

9:30 pm Council – How does a Community Cross into the 5th World?

to Midnight Meditation, Ritual, Land, Prayer

Saturday, Dec. 22, 2012: Exploring and Articulating the New Ways. Responsibility. Entering the 5th World through Commitment to the Way.

10:00 am Relight Fire

Retrospective – Where have we come?

Focus and Articulate Goals

Meditation, Ritual, Land, Prayer

11:30 am Dream, Story, Vision

Reading the Signs

12:30-2:00 pm Council – 5th World

2:00-3:30 pm End Fast, Food and Camaraderie

3:30-4:30 pm Music, Dance, Celebration

6:00 pm Meditation

7:00 pm Food and Camaraderie

8:00 pm Council on the future of community and all beings.

10:00 pm Drumming, Music, Community

* * * * *

We are being called together to create the possibility to meet these times. We will do it as simply and cooperatively as possible. This has to be a small gathering. Our hope is that we will be able to be outside for much of the time, meditating on the land, sitting around the fire, using the outdoor kitchen for very simple food preparation and serving – reviving some of the most simple and old, old ways of community and communion. However, the indoor space is small, the weather unpredictable. Parking is limited. When it rains, the land becomes virtually impassable. We can expect to encounter just the right difficulties to help us transform. We hope to meet whatever arises with heart, great generosity and exquisite care for the land, our neighbors, each other and all the beings present.

2012 requires us to be simple, quiet, modest in our gathering and to take responsibilityfor ourselves, each other and the land. It is asking us to create forms with light footprints. It is asking us to meet Spirit and the land more than it is asking us to meet each other.

We will set up four tents, one in each of the four directions, so that, no matter the weather, someone can be meditating for and listening to the land and the spirits throughout the gathering.

As the three-day Dare’ on Behalf of the Future approaches on Dec. 20-22, 2012, we find ourselves immersed in preparing ourselves both individually and as a community to mark this event. We are asking what questions we carry for each other, what changes we are preparing to make, how we can serve the time.

We are imagining a progression of detaching from untenable lifestyles to resonance with the heart of the universe and then to stepping into the possibilities of new life for ourselves and all beings. We are looking to see how we can each shift and how a community shifts as well to meet this time of difficulty and opportunity. The schedule provides some framework to do this work and be in ceremony together.

Notes and Intentions

Our core time marking the solstice alignment is from 1 am to 5 a.m. on the morning of December 21, 2012 with the exact moment at 3:12 am PST. We will have a focused drumming session for that time. Ideally, we will also have continuous drumming from 3 pm on December 20th until 5 am December 21. This is dependent on who is here and what emerges as possible. It will be arranged according to what Spirit presents during our time together.

A sacred fire will be lit at the beginning of the event and will be kept burning until the end. The fire will be renewed ritually at the beginning of each day. It will be renewed again at 3:30 am on December 21. People may volunteer to be fire keepers.

* * * * *

While the land in Topanga will be open to the community for these three days for ceremony, ritual, prayer, meditation, drumming, music, invocation, silence, tending the sacred fire and blessing, along with food and camaraderie, conversation and companionship, no one will be able to sleep over or camp on the land overnight. Everyone must arrange for their own housing for sleep and restoration. Food contributions, soup, bread and rice, will be needed.

This Daré, will be one of great simplicity. As 2013 requires us to simplify our lives profoundly, these ritual days will be in keeping with that directive.

A question we will hold at each moment is: How will we treat and take care of each other, human and non-human, and the earth in the 5th world?

Contributions/Dana are expected to support the cost of the event and, hopefully, to bring in a few elders and wisdom keepers who cannot afford to attend without having transportation and expenses paid for.

Please note again, there are a few places left for the Topanga Daré 2012,so if you are hoping to attend, please call Danelia Wild, 310-815-1060 or email her at dwild4deena@ca.rr.com immediately to receive the necessary information to attend, to make reservations and/or for questions. No one admitted without reservations.

9 responses to “The Ones Who Accompany Us to 2012”

I will be with you all in thoughts, prayers, and meditation, Deena. I wish I could join you, but cannot. What you said about the Kogi elders no longer being able to reach us telepathically, and it being our fault: I, have had difficulty communicating with the Spirits that Guide me, both human and animal, more and more the past few years. I have wondered if all the information flying through cyberspace–the Internet, cell phone usage, etc., muddles messages, in both directions? It’s been my thought; I have no difficulty at all reaching these Spirits when I am in a place where there is no WIFI and no cell phone service. What are your thoughts on this? I’d be curious.

Deena, I am deeply moved by this latest blog, as I have by the others in this series. I hear your deep dedication, your fine-tuned listening, your alliance with the heart of creation, your willingness to shift and adjust as that which has been ‘invisible’ comes more clearly into view.

I too have been feeling a pressure that is not just triggered by difficulties, but the pressure of something wanting to be ‘known’ again, something so ancient and powerful, wise and loving, fierce and omnipresent… and something that also defies ‘names’ I might have given it in the past.

I oscillate between tending the daily needs and then feeling the very superficiality of these tasks. I hear, when I pause and listen, another imperative asserting itself through my consciousness, like sunlight on a winter day, creeping through the blinds. I feel like I am being gently rocked, back and forth, between the old paradigms and the new which is not fully present or sturdy, but arriving, arriving, more clearly every day.

My task is to be present to this. Not to push into busyness prematurely. Not to think I understand. Not to react or adjust myself and position myself to ‘take advantage’ of the shift. Just to listen. Just to turn up. Just to be present. It is a huge discipline for me these days.

I have made the flower essence combination for 2013, and the story it tells is very simple. A short quote from the definition: When a living system is out of balance, as our world is now, the system is actually attempting to self-organize into a new, more complex structure. Yet how do we participate when everything we know is breaking down? The essence focuses on two elements – the power of our conscious loving and our ability to listen to the song within our hearts.

I have created a six-minute I-Movie with the Paul Winter Consort’s beautiful and haunting Wolf Song that feels resonant with the tone of your message this morning, Deena. Here is the link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wkiLmcIDN0g

Your letter satisfies a deep hope that I have had about writing a Blog – that the writing might take us somewhere – that a real exchange, either with me, or with the community, or both, or more might occur. Of course, I remember our meeting on the land near Toronto – and the light on the meadow and among the trees – and the stories told. The memory is like the images that you have chosen that are so so beautiful and full or light.
And then, your words here: “I too have been feeling a pressure that is not just triggered by difficulties, but the pressure of something wanting to be ‘known’ again, something so ancient and powerful, wise and loving, fierce and omnipresent… and something that also defies ‘names’ I might have given it in the past.”

We are all feeling this now, don’t you think, and it must be met. I rarely if ever watch videos or films, but I did watch this, glad to hear one of my favorite pieces of music, glad to see the images of utter beauty, some of which I know and treasure, glad to know you put this together. Glad for the wolf song! Wolf will be with us in the circle.

I worked with two clients yesterday and we were bathed in light and movement together. Rather than the pain of being thwarted that is so familiar, each spoke of being taken to a new place and daring to meet it. The daring of loving the world was what they each carried in their own distinct ways. I see that emerging in you. Nora Jamieson speaks of that in her simple but not so simple mantra.

I don’t know Smoky. I see them as two different issues – the serious effect of unnatural radiation on our bodies and minds — and the denseness and obtuseness of our culture that has turned away from the old, old ways. Much of wifi and cell phone radiation can’t be escaped as we are in its field no matter what we do. Still I have land lines in my house – and listen whenever I can to my dreams.

Deena, I am touched by your swift and thoughtful reply. My equally swift response comes as part of the conversation you said you wanted through this blog, along with a desire to send you some bottles of the New Year 2013 essence for your 3-day event, to be used as you and those gathered with you feel guided throughout the time.

I have a very different understanding of the role of flower essences than most producers/practitioners. Rather than a ‘green allopathy’ medicine, I see them as highly intelligent, dynamically alive, alchemical ‘lubricators’ for the shifts we are currently experiencing. They are some of our best body-soul medicine in these times, providing resonating templates of nature’s way, a pulsing reality known and experienced only in the moment.

I would love to gift you and your group some bottles of both the 2012 and the 2013 essence. (The essences come with a booklet, a slideshow/movie on the web, and packaged in an organza bag.) Both New Year essences could serve as living templates, complementing your meditations, conversations and rituals. I’m convinced they LOVE to be used in these sacred settings!

Please let me know if this gift feels appropriate; if so, where I should send them so that you can receive them in time? (Shipping takes approximately a week to ten days, airmail from Canada.)

Meanwhile, you asked about events in the Toronto area… There are a variety of events occurring in and around Toronto throughout the entire month. The Solstice Gathering here at Grey Heron (my home just north of the city) is on the 21st, with several other members of the Earthsong Mysteries community participating as hosts. (By the way, Earthsong Mysteries was conceived as a community of friends listening to/ and with the Earth a few years ago. It’s energetic roots were directly stimulated by our gathering, many moons ago; a number of the people I met there with you are now active in various intimate, and highly dynamic circles.) James Wells, Jeannette McCullough, and Eimear O’Neill are providing circle-events in the city throughout the entire month. It is very beautiful to witness overlapping circles of friends supporting each other, all responding to the Call we are so viscerally perceiving.

Here in Boston we are preparing too. Have been preparing. We have had one envisioning Council with 13 women. A few of us will meet three more times to listen deeply for what ceremony we will offer the community at Solstice. I will bring what you have written, and two dreams I have been given. We will do divination and Council until we decide on a form. And then, of course, we will see what happens when the time arrives. I am hoping we will be able to cross the line, as in the initiations of the beautiful young Mayan sprouts- being one kind of being on one side and then stepping across to become something else- blossoming into who we are meant to be so that we can serve the village.The village that includes all beings- human, animal, green growing ones, ancestors, elementals, invisibles. I am hoping for such a transformation. Longing for it. Praying for it. Even though I also know that I do not know what it will be. And hoping I can yield to what it is…
All love and blessings to all of you out there doing the same.
Laurie Markoff